This list will look familiar from last week, because I’m on vacation and typing up my posts in advance, so these are the titles I have with me on vacation! With sightseeing and traveling, I’m not sure how much time I’ll actually have to read, but I love having options to pick from and I’m so excited to read these titles!

Anne of Green Gables by Mariah Marsden (graphic novel!)

Click’d by Tamara Ireland Stone

Elsie Mae Has Something to Say by Nancy J. Cavanaugh

The List by Patricia Forde

Moonlight Over Manhattan by Sarah Morgan

More Girls Who Rocked the World by Michelle Roehm McCann

Her Book Boyfriend by KR Grace

Ghosts of Greenglass House by Kate Milford

All the Wind In the World by Samantha Mabry

Just Friends by Dyan Sheldon

Tell Me That You’re My Mine by Victoria De La O

Join Jen from Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki from Unleashing Readers and share all of the reading you have done over the week from picture books to young adult novels. Follow the links to read about all of the amazing books the #IMWAYR

I’m getting ready for vacation, so I took some time to request some titles from NetGalley to have some digital galleys to read while traveling. Digital books are not my favorite to read – I just love reading a real book, but when I travel, I don’t have enough room in my luggage for the number of books I want to read. So, digital books it is! While, I’m away, I have access to the following titles:

Anne of Green Gables by Mariah Marsden (graphic novel!)

Click’d by Tamara Ireland Stone

Elsie Mae Has Something to Say by Nancy J. Cavanaugh

The List by Patricia Forde

Moonlight Over Manhattan by Sarah Morgan

More Girls Who Rocked the World by Michelle Roehm McCann

Her Book Boyfriend by KR Grace

Ghosts of Greenglass House by Kate Milford

All the Wind In the World by Samantha Mabry

Just Friends by Dyan Sheldon

Tell Me That You’re My Mine by Victoria De La O

With sightseeing and traveling, I’m not sure how much time I’ll actually have to read, but I love having options to pick from and I’m so excited to read these titles!

Join Jen from Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki from Unleashing Readers and share all of the reading you have done over the week from picture books to young adult novels. Follow the links to read about all of the amazing books the #IMWAYR

Even with a directors’ institute and a lot of work – I got through five books and loved them all! I read:

The Great Library Race by Chris Grabenstein

The Perfect Score by Rob Buyea

Auma’s Long Run by Eucabeth A. Odhiambo

To All the Boys I Loved Before by Jenny Han

The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David Barclay Moore

This week I’m planning on reading Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn, A List of Cages by Robin Roe and maybe, if I’m lucky Once and For All by Sarah Dessen – I’m super excited for some great new books and you’ll be seeing some new book reviews over the next few weeks.

Join Jen from Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki from Unleashing Readers and share all of the reading you have done over the week from picture books to young adult novels. Follow the links to read about all of the amazing books the #IMWAYR

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My co-worker and I went up to Book Expo America (BEA) on Friday, just for the day. We couldn’t go for all three days and got up extra early on Friday to drive to New Jersey to grab the NJ Transit up to Penn Station and then walked the few short blocks to the Javits Center. With commuting time, we spend over 12 hours on an epic trip that napped us some really great SWAG and some awesome author autographs.

If you’re unfamiliar with BEA, it’s a yearly expo of publishers promoting upcoming titles for the summer and fall season, sometimes even hitting titles for early the following year. For many of the publishers, they spend the three days in meetings with authors, potential authors and working really hard to provide a quality experience for booksellers, educators and librarians.

It’s a chance for us, as librarians to become familiar with upcoming titles for picture books, middle grade and young adult genres. It’s so much fun talking with publisher reps who are as excited about books as we are and they have so much great knowledge about titles that they not only enjoyed, but truly loved reading.

So here’s what actually happens, there’s a large convention space for all publishers and as a librarian, we walk around talking with reps and picking up Advanced Reader’s Copies or ARCs – books that are planning on being published in the next six months or so. These prints usually have some editing that needs to be done, some are without artwork or color, while others can be missing entire sections of the book. But, for the most part you can snag some pretty awesome titles. For example, at a conference last year I got an ARC for The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill which later won the Newbery Award (and I was later able to get my ARC signed by the author which is pretty awesome). So, as you can see, I got the most recent title in the Mr.Lemocello’s Library series, due out on October 10, 2017, along with 36 other titles, mainly middle grade and YA, but also a few picture books as well.

The Expo also has some really great talks going on through the three-day event including promotional talks, talking about diversity, and more. We were able to stop by the editor book buzz on middle grade fiction out this fall and got to a great afternoon talk which you can see in the picture below!

The other exciting part of conferences and expos like BEA is the chance to meet authors and illustrators – this year we got to get book signed by Caldecott winner, Dan Santat, Chris Grabenstein, Lindsay Eager, plus (drumroll please…) Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), Chris Harris author and producer of How I Met Your Mother and Neil Patrick Harris, yes that Neil Patrick Harris.

I was completely exhausted by the end of the day, but we had an awesome time and I’m hoping that next year, I’ll actually be able to spend the whole three days in New York! A great big thank you to all the publishers, authors, and illustrators who worked so hard to make this event a success! It was awesome!

ARCs have been discussed on Twitter over the past few days because a blogger grabbed an over-abundance of ARCs at a conference (multiple copies of each title) and are now trying to send them to people for $20 and up. The cost to send books through media mail is under $5 and supplies definitely do not cost $15, so they are clearly making a profit. This is not right and not legal – these books are illegal to sell and blogger’s who pick up ARCs to sell are creating a bad environment for bloggers, librarians, and parents who are promoting these books to kids they know who will absolutely love these books.

What are ARCs?

I’ve mentioned ARCs, here on my blog a number of times. ARCs, or Advanced Reader Copies, (also known as galleys) are books that have been pre-published as a part of a marketing campaign to promote the title, author and publisher. ARCs can be physical books or available as an eBook through Netgalley and Edelweiss. ARCs are also considered uncorrected proofs, which means that many times they have editorial mistakes (spelling punctuation), sometimes they’re missing illustrations, and sometimes they’re missing chapters or pages, depending on the book. But, usually the books are complete and only have minor mistakes.

Where do you find them?

ARCs are usually found at large conference and conventions – American Library Association conferences, Book Expo America, through the publishers directly and as I said before online through Netgalley and Edelweiss.

What do you do with ARCs?

I pick up ARCs at conferences to read (obviously). It’s a great way for librarians and bloggers to read and promote authors’ works. I usually read a book and then know instantly a kid who needs to read the story. I also try and review the new books coming out to promote them to other librarians and parents through my blog and on Twitter.

What do you do after you finish reading them?

Here’s the most important thing to know: you CAN’T sell these books. (It says so write on the book cover) I keep a stock pile at my desk for the kids looking for something specific to read and I happen to have an extra copy or for the kids who needs a book at home. We use them for prizes and drawing at the library too. What we don’t do is sell them in our used book sale – it’s illegal!

You can also donate these books to classroom teachers, school libraries (for prizes), shelters, prisons or even laundromats or doctor’s offices where there are often kids sitting and waiting.

The Dos and Don’ts of ARCs:

Don’t sell them!

Don’t grab 8 copies of your favorite author’s book at a conference or expo (it’s rude).

Try hard not to take too many ARCs (especially if you aren’t going to do anything with them!)

Talk with publishers – they love to hear what you’ve liked that they published recently and what you’re looking forward to. If you strike up a conversation, a lot of times they’ll go the extra mile to find something that they are excited to share with you!

Review those ARCs – they cost money to publish and send to you, personally or to conferences, so make it worth the publishers’ while.